U.S., Iraqi forces continue hunt for al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents

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An Air Force F-16 drops a 500-pound bomb an al-Qaida in Iraq van after the insurgents attacked Iraqi soldiers and "concerned citizens" Thursday, 3rd Infantry Division officials said.


U.S., Iraqi forces continue hunt for al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents
By Erik Slavin, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, November 25, 2007

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq — U.S. forces are pursuing al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents who killed at least nine Iraqis and wounded others Thursday during an attack in a town near Baghdad, military officials said Saturday.

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team was after some of the men involved prior to the attack in Hawr Rajab, a small town just outside Baghdad’s southern city limits.

Plans to find the insurgents will continue in the wake of the attack that killed seven “concerned citizens” and two Iraqi soldiers, said Col. James Adams, deputy commanding officer of the 2nd BCT.

Concerned citizens are not soldiers or police officers but receive pay and uniforms from U.S. forces to patrol their neighborhoods.

“We know their leaders. We know their patterns and we know generally what losses they took,” Adams said of the al-Qaida attackers. “We have forced them to move around a lot, so there is no specific safe haven for them anymore. We’re going to attack them where they’re at.”

Accounts of the battle’s death toll and timeline varied widely among media outlets, which quoted mainly Iraqi sources.


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50500